


o holy.

by orange_crushed



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Brooklyn, Childhood Friends, Christmas, Church Pageants, Gen, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers: Kind of a Shitty Angel, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:59:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5181218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_crushed/pseuds/orange_crushed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Go away,” Steve says, imperiously, from behind the drape. “This room’s for performers only.”</p>
<p>“Jesus Christ.”</p>
<p>“Him too, sure,” says Steve. “Performers and Jesus Christ only. So get out, Buck.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	o holy.

“Is that-” Bucky starts, and stops, and leans forward, squinting; and puts his whole hand on the side of Christopher O’Boyle’s face to shove his head out of the line of sight.

“Git _off_ ,” Christopher yelps, muffled, but Bucky is staring past him, down over the edge of the balcony, above the crowds stuffed into the pews, most of them with their hats and coats still on, jamming themselves into the back rows. Whatever excuses folks have most Sundays, Christmas Eve still packs ‘em in. The chancel’s lit up with candles and the choir is going after the _Adeste Fideles_ like it owes them money, and right up in the middle there’s a bunch of kids in starched white robes, faces scrubbed and tiny cheeks rouged, tinsel halos all crooked, paper wings, rope belts tied off at the waist. None of them look older than nine, which Bucky knows makes them practically babies. They’re holding candles and singing with smiles on their faces, most of them: bright-eyed, loudly off-key, their warbly high notes ringing off the architecture like a bunch of birdcalls. Bucky evaded being one of those kids, year after year, by having a round-cheeked older sister whose hair goes naturally to curls, and who only _sometimes_ grinds her heels into people’s insteps to make a point. He would make fun of the floppy robes and cheap halos, but it feels sort of mean-spirited and empty. Nobody’s gonna mistake the Hanlon twins for angels, no matter what they’re wearing, but on the whole, with the lights and candles and boughs of green and mildly respectable cherubs, it makes a complete picture, something nice, like the front of a postcard. All except for one thing. Bucky couldn’t quite put his finger on it, until he could, and then he almost fell off the balcony trying to get a better look.

“Oh my God,” he says out loud, and Dolores rolls her eyes and flicks him in the ear because their mother can’t reach. Bucky rubs at the sting and takes his hand off Christopher’s face to grip the railing, so that he doesn’t go flying into space to meet the brand-new baby Jesus personally. He feels light-headed with glee. “Oh my God,” Bucky whispers. “It isn’t.”

There’s an angel at the back that’s taller than the others, though not by much: the hem of his robe doesn’t quite reach the floor, but the sleeves swamp his wrists, make him look like an empty shirt hung up on wires. The other kids are glassy-eyed, excited by the attention, wriggling around and getting tinsel everywhere. But not him. No: he’s staring straight out into the middle of the aisle, face rigidly still, rouged up like a clown. To anybody else he probably looks serious, even thoughtful, like he’s contemplating the Mysteries. But Bucky knows better, knows _him_ : he looks like he’s thinking about burning the building down. Bucky doesn’t notice his own mouth drop open, until little Ginny’s tugging his arm, getting him to bend over into her reach.

“Is that Stevie?” she stage-whispers in his ear. “Down there, dressed like-”

“Yes it is,” Bucky says. “Eagle eye, Gin.” Far below, Steve’s halo slips down over one ear, and when he sticks one stiff, awkward hand up to tilt it back, Bucky feels a burst of hilarity well up in him like soda bubbles. If there’s nothing in his stocking tomorrow, he’ll know why: he already got this. 

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, Bucky slips away from his mother and his grandmother and his three aunts and sisters and cousins and his uncle and his uncle’s in-laws and their grandchildren and finds the staircase up to the Sunday school rooms, taking the steps two at a time. There are parents and kids on the landing, putting coats over their angel robes, laughing, and they brush past Bucky on the way down, and then it’s just Bucky in the makeshift changing room, and a curtain that mysteriously has a pair of cheap shoes behind it.

“Come on out,” Bucky says. “I’ve already seen.”

“Go away,” Steve says, imperiously, from behind the drape. “This room’s for performers only.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Him too, sure,” says Steve. “Performers and Jesus Christ only. So get out, Buck.”

Bucky laughs and pulls the curtain aside and then it’s just Steve, still an angel on top, red-faced and halfway radiant, but with half his robe stuffed down the front of his pants, evidence that he was trying to make a quick getaway. There’s tinsel all over him, like his halo gave up in despair. He has one paper wing left. He is the greatest thing Bucky’s ever seen. He looks like a vaudeville accident. “Shut up,” Steve says, when Bucky points a finger in his face and tells him so. Under the rouge, his face gets impossibly redder. Bucky can’t help but laugh harder, hysterically, until he has to bend over and rest his palms on his thighs. Steve draws himself furiously up to his full height of four foot nothing or so and says, “It wasn’t my idea. Some of the little ones got a stage fright. Mrs. Taylor asked, and I couldn’t say no.”

“Now I know why this thing gave out,” Bucky says, still hiccuping, and plucks off a handful of silver strings from the exploded halo. They’re slippery and cool. He dangles them in Steve’s face. “Overwork.” Steve shoves at him, but he’s smiling, pink to his ears. Bucky blows tinsel into his eyes, and Steve ups the ante by grinding a heel onto the top of Bucky’s dress shoes. It’s a patented Dolores move. Steve’s been studying the classics. “Hey!”

“Hey nothing,” Steve says. “You done making fun of me?” He pulls his coat on over the robe, the same beat-up wool jacket he wears everywhere. With the extra bulk it’s tighter when he buttons it shut, like Steve gained ten pounds overnight, got some meat on his bones. The effect is funny, but also not funny at all, for reasons Bucky can’t really put together. Steve pulls his hat down and goes for the door, like Bucky’s going to follow him.

“Wait a second, wait,” Bucky says, and grabs him by the elbow. “You gonna go out there with all that, that stuff on your face?” Steve blanks him for a second, not getting it, and then he claps a hand dramatically against one rouged cheek like a silent film actress.

“Oh,” he says. “Yeah.” There’s a hand mirror still sitting on one of the desks: Steve picks it up and regards himself, scowling, tilting his head side to side. “Boy, they really-” he says, and Bucky can’t hold the second wave in anymore, a laugh rips out of his nose like a snort. “Well,” Steve says. “Let’s see how you like it.”

“How I- what?” Bucky has time to say, before Steve has swung an arm up with a brush in it. It connects with Bucky’s jaw instead of his cheek, and Bucky wrestles him away, but Steve’s light and quick, darting in and landing an enormous puff of rouge right on Bucky’s nose. It makes them both cough for a second, and Bucky pushes Steve off and grabs the mirror from the floor. “For crying out loud-”

“I think you look great,” Steve says. He’s panting a little, grinning, about thirteen percent angel and eighty-seven percent piss and vinegar. “Classy, even. Goes with your shirt.” Bucky pulls the brush out of his hands, and goes looking for the rouge palette. It’s sitting on top of the piano. Steve skips around it for a second, trying to stay out of reach, but Bucky leans in, swipes the brush across Steve’s forehead, and then Steve grabs it out of his hands and gives Bucky a big mark on the chin, and then Bucky’s trying to wrench the palette out of his hands and just stick his fingers into it, so that he can put a smeared handprint across Steve’s ridiculous face, and then-

“ _Steven Grant Rogers_ ,” Steve’s ma gasps, from the open doorway. “What on earth?” They break apart, guiltily, and Bucky is still fumbling the palette shut when Steve squares his tiny shoulders and says,

“I started it,” in that weird adult voice he puts on. Steve’s ma looks between them, sighs, and glances at the ceiling for a second, the corner of her mouth tilting up. 

“Come on, come on, the Lord can see you,” she says, and motions them into the hallway, points them at the lavatories. “An’ you look a mess. Wee red terrors, get.”

“I’m not _wee_ -” Steve says, icily, embarrassed, at the same time that Bucky gasps, “I’m _twelve_ ,” and then Steve’s mother breaks and laughs behind her hands at them mercilessly until they go behind the washroom door. They scrub their faces hard and then harder, but it’s more difficult than it looks to get all the color off. “What’s in this?” Bucky complains, after his second attempt with the soap. “Paint?”

“Pigment,” Steve corrects, “kinda of like in paint, but-” and Bucky rolls his eyes. “You asked!”

“I did,” Bucky says. In the end, they have to settle for getting most of it off, and then pulling their hats down over their faces, as low as they can go without looking like criminals. Bucky winds a scarf around his cheeks firmly, like he’s wrapping a box in brown paper, and tucks the ends into his collar. Steve’s mother takes them downstairs and outside, where the crowd is still milling around on the street, shaking hands with Father Flanigan and each other. Bucky’s tallest, least conversational cousin spots him and puts him under his armpit, and from that less than ideal vantage point, Bucky can see Steve and his mother starting to drift away down the street, towards home. “Steve!” he calls out, suddenly panicked. He didn’t even say- “Merry Christmas!” he hollers, and then again, to make sure. Steve puts a hand up, one ugly mitten, and smiles at Bucky from under the streetlight. There’s still tinsel coming out from under his hat, falling onto his shoulders and glittering like snowflakes, like dancing light, and for a second Bucky feels crazy, wonders if he’s- because in this glare it’s so funny, the way Steve shines, radiates almost, like an actual-

“Merry Christmas!” Steve calls back. He moves to walk side by side with his mother but then turns around, walking backwards for a second, while Bucky’s cousin drags him in the opposite direction, pinching Bucky’s ribs for good measure. Bucky kicks him in the shin and Steve waves again, still pink and glowing. “Looking sharp, Buck!” he yells, from halfway down the block. Bucky watches him, grinning like a fool, until they turn the corner.

“What is that child talking about?” Bucky’s mother asks, while she tries to get him to button his coat and look presentable. “And why is your scarf tied so tight?”

“Oh, who knows,” says Bucky.

 

.

**Author's Note:**

> "I can see a lot of life in you  
> I can see a lot of bright in you  
> And I think the dress looks nice on you  
> I can see a lot of life in you."  
> -Sufjan Stevens 


End file.
